1957 in literature
The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books. Events * Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960. * Dorothy Parker begins writing book reviews for Esquire. * E. E. Cummings receives a special citation from the National Book Award Committee for his Poems, 1923-1954. * Italo Calvino resigns from the Communist Party. His famous letter of resignation is published in L'Unità. * John Updike moves to Ipswich, Massachusetts, the model for the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his novel, Couples. * The Last Days of Sodom, a novel jointly written by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, is rejected. As a result they give up working in partnership. * Malcolm Muggeridge is replaced by Bernard Hollowood as editor of Punch magazine. * Copies of Howl are seized by customs officials. Later in the year, the publishers are acquitted of obscenity charges stemming from the incident. New books * Caridad Bravo Adams - Corazón salvaje * Isaac Asimov ** Earth is Room Enough ** The Naked Sun * John Braine - Room at the Top * Fredric Brown - Rogue in Space * Pearl S. Buck - Letter from Peking * Michel Butor - La Modification * John Dickson Carr - Fire, Burn! * John Cheever - ''The Wapshot Chronicle * Agatha Christie - 4.50 from Paddington * Mark Clifton & Frank Riley - They'd Rather Be Right * Thomas B. Costain - Below the Salt * James Gould Cozzens - By Love Possessed * L. Sprague de Camp - Solomon's Stone * Daphne du Maurier - The Scapegoat * Lawrence Durrell - Justine * Ian Fleming ** The Diamond Smugglers ** From Russia with Love * Aldous Huxley - Collected Short Stories * James Jones - Some Came Running * Anna Kavan - Eagle's Nest * Jack Kerouac - On the Road * Frances Parkinson Keyes - Blue Camellia * Christopher Landon - Ice Cold in Alex * Meyer Levin - Compulsion * H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth - The Survivor and Others * Alistair MacLean **''The Guns of Navarone'' **''South by Java Head'' * Naguib Mahfouz - Sugar Street * Bernard Malamud - The Assistant * Richard Mason - The World of Suzie Wong * James A. Michener - Rascals in Paradise * Nancy Mitford - Voltaire in Love * C. L. Moore - Doomsday Morning * Elsa Morante - L'isola di Arturo * Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle * Vladimir Nabokov - Pnin * Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp - The Return of Conan * Marcel Pagnol - Le Château de ma mère * Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago * Anthony Powell - At Lady Molly's * Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged * Robert Randall (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) - The Shrouded Planet * Dr. Seuss - The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas * Nevil Shute - ''On the Beach * Robert Paul Smith - Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing * Muriel Spark - The Comforters * John Steinbeck - The Short Reign of Pippin IV * Rex Stout ** Three for the Chair ** If Death Ever Slept * Kay Thompson - Eloise in Paris * Roger Vailland - La Loi * Jack Vance - Big Planet * Evelyn Waugh - The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold * Patrick White - Voss * Angus Wilson - A Bit Off the Map * John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos * Ivan Yefremov - Andromeda Nebula New drama * Samuel Beckett - Endgame and Act Without Words I (first performed); All That Fall and From an Abandoned Work (first broadcast of both) * Christopher Fry - The Dark is Light Enough * Jean Genet - The Balcony * Graham Greene - The Potting Shed * William Inge - The Dark at the Top of the Stairs * Heiner Müller - The Correction * John Osborne - The Entertainer and Epitaph for George Dillon * Harold Pinter - The Dumb Waiter (written) * N. F. Simpson - The Resounding Tinkle * Tennessee Williams - Baby Doll and Orpheus Descending Poetry * Robert E. Howard - Always Comes Evening Non-fiction * Elisabeth Elliot — Through Gates of Splendor * Northrop Frye — Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays * Richard Hoggart — The Uses of Literacy * Eric John Holmyard - Alchemy * Primo Levi — If This Is a Man (Se Questo è un Uomo) * Art Linkletter — Kids Say the Darndest Things * Mary McCarthy — Memories of a Catholic Girlhood * Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley — The Untouchables * Jean-Paul Sartre — Existentialism and Human Emotions * Rodolfo Walsh — Operación Masacre Births * March 26 - Paul Morley, music journalist * May 17 - Peter Høeg, novelist * May 23 - Craig Brown, satirist * June 8 - Scott Adams, satirist * August 24 - Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, television presenter and novelist * September 22 - Nick Cave, musician and author * December 11 - William Joyce, children's author * date unknown ** John Doyle, critic ** Rainer Karlsch, historian ** Mitchell Symons, journalist ** Melanie Rae Thon, author ** William S. Field, patent researcher Deaths * January 10 - Gabriela Mistral, poet (b. 1889) * February 10 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, author * March 12 - John Middleton Murry, critic * March 28 - Christopher Morley, journalist, novelist and poet * March 29 - Joyce Cary, author * April 22 - Roy Campbell, poet * June 17 - Dorothy Richardson, novelist * June 27 - Malcolm Lowry, author * July 21 - Kenneth Roberts, novelist * July 23 - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, novelist (b. 1896) * September 2 - William Craigie, lexicographer * December 17 - Dorothy L. Sayers, crime novelist Awards * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: William Mayne, A Grass Rope * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke * Miles Franklin Award: Patrick White, Voss * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Virginia Sorenson, Miracles on Maple Hill * Nobel Prize for literature: Albert Camus * Premio Nadal: Carmen Martín Gaite, Entre visillos * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: Things of This World * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Siegfried Sassoon See also 1956 in literature, other events of 1957, 1958 in literature, list of years in literature. External links * Category:Years in literature Category:History of literature Category:Literature by year